Hi friends! I'm having some really complex feelings and just want to rant and maybe get some advice?

TLDR I feel gross and miss sex

I was diagnosed last April, 5 months after my wedding. Pretty much as soon as I got my diagnosis, things became so hectic and both my husband and I were so exhausted, we never got a chance to have sex or be intimate. Started with chemo, lost my long, curly red hair that I felt was my most attractive trait. Then the double mastectomy, so no boobs, just two big scars and an out of proportion body. Next up was radiation, so between fatigue and slathering my chest with aquaphor twice a day, sex was on the very bottom of our list of priorities. Jumped right into hormone blockers, so I kicked off the spring with clinically induced menopause - I gained a bunch of weight, and who knows how my cooch has been affected. DIEP Flap is scheduled for the fall, but I know it will be a few months minimum before my foobs start looking and feeling healed.

My husband and I haven't talked about our lack of sex at all, except in relation to my body image. I feel absolutely detached from my body. I don't recognize it, I have lost basically all sensation on the right side of my chest, all of the parts of my body that boosted my confidence most, are gone. I don't know how to feel attractive, much less feel sexy. I've been in survival mode for so long, I'm only now really getting to feel the void that not being intimate with my partner has created. I miss that aspect of our relationship, and honestly feel robbed of the typical newlywed sex life.

I finally got up the nerve to ask my husband if he would be open to slowly start getting back in to things - basically starting our sex life from scratch. I was really nervou. I know his turn ons and his preferences, and I no longer fit with that. I also told him that I wanted an honest answer and that he didn't need to feel pressured to tell me what I wanted to hear. I understand that you can love someone unconditionally, but sometimes physical attraction is conditional. That's being human. I wanted him to know that I really just wanted to start the conversation and see if he would be interested in trying to get back into intimacy.

He was quiet for a while and then said he needed to think about it. Needless to say, not the most encouraging response, but I don't at all hold it against him. How could I blame him for not finding me attractive when I myself don't think I'm attractive?

I miss my body. My pre-cancer body. What if I can't learn to love my body again? I'm just really scared that our intimacy will never be what it was.